Most people associate Christmas day with the smell of freshly-baked cookies, or turkey and stuffing cooking in the oven. Not me. What takes me back is the smell of plastic model paint. Being a geeky child of the 60s, nothing recalls Christmas to me quite as much as building plastic models, whether they were commercial airplanes, movie monsters, anatomical displays, dinosaur skeletons, or spacecraft. And they all required painting.
Indeed.
Olfactory sensations – and what they elicit – go right to the heart of the brain and hit home like nothing else.
My brother built model planes and battle ships. I built cars. I had a collection of Lincolns. I said one day I will be able to afford one, and now I can, but I prefer the Lexus SUV.